Kevein Books and Reviews

Young Detective by Sumita Bose offers a wonderful reading session of fun, interaction, and learning. This book offers twelve light detective stories for children, students, and their parents. Each story is short, unique, and ends on a cliffhanger position. Readers have to solve the ending of the mystery. For that Sumita puts a question at the end of each chapter. For instance, the first story is about a sculptor theft. The detective questions a few close by people and he finds the culprit. A little thinking and rereading the story twice may give you the clues and answers. However, if you failed to do so or, want to crosscheck your answer – an answer key is given at the back of the book. Since during school days most of the detective stories are build around thefts and petty crimes without bloodshed such as kidnapping, cheating in exams and games, and so on. Sumita has particularly taken care of this. The most impressive story about kidnapping is ‘The Kidnapped Businessman’. You w...

One Summer in Poleru by Nanda Rajanala is an enchanting novel that blends crime & suspense and murder mystery into one. Staged against a fictional village named Poleru in South India, where the vernacular language is Telugu, the novel takes a stance on evil vs. good deeds. At large in the world, people are so greedy and corrupt that their personal motives take precedence over destitute people’s privileges and basic rights. But some fights for rights are epic, and this novel is about one such good story. The novel puts forth the fight of some school children against the powerful corrupt political figures and government officials. On the name of development, authorities have decided to demolish a very old government school where students from poor and suppressed families study. This doesn’t go well with Renu, the protagonist. She is a seventh grade student. At the beginning of one summer vacation, this sad news perturbs her. The school holds historical value, as it was build since ...

Selling from Your Comfort Zone by Stacey Hall is a highly powerful and resourceful book on sales. The book is useful for marketers, sales persons, corporate people, business development folks, CEOs, and many more that have to indulge into sales for sustenance and growth. This book is different from any stereotype training material or sales development structure. Ironically, it lays focus on the power of alignment marketing by leveraging comfort zone and core values. Often sales people are instructed to follow certain rules, monotonous scripts, and are told to come out of their comfort zones to make sales. They need to take pain to make sales! However, Stacey Hall has discovered a successful formula for sales. (Alignment + Belief × Consistency = Sales, Satisfaction, and Success). Segmented in 5 parts, the book unfolds the chart of guidance step by step. The first segment calls for retrospection, where you need to check yourself with your comfort zone such as your limit, flexibility,...

Terry Lister is an amazing brave solo traveler from Bermuda. I have known him through two books as of now. When I first read his book Immersed in West Africa, I was startled to find his unusual journeying through the world’s most rough and ruthless countries i.e. West Africa. I felt sad for him reading his difficult life as a traveler through those countries…but with this book, which is again on four more West African countries, I am sure he has affinity for challenging and uncharted territories. Terry has created a lot of stir with his experience on West African countries among the western reading communities, travelers, and nomads. Being from India, I hardly hear anyone visiting West Africa. It’s like unheard places on the earth. You need to be like them to be there, to manage them, to adjust in their rickety and overcrowded mini buses and cars, and avoiding being scammed all the time. Facilities in West African countries are below average but a solo traveler like Terry enjoys th...

The Whistling Schoolboy by Ruskin Bond is a slightly short ghost story on a phantom bicycle rider. Set in much familiar landscape, Mussoorie. The narrator is taking a late evening walk on a lonely road. It was a bright moonlit night. All sorts of trees like oak, pins, deodars, etc. were creaking, as craving for some company.   In Ruskin Bond stories, you will never find a story going ahead without trees at his side. The narrator is walking in the silence of night. In fact, night walking is popular in Ruskin Bond stories when he is to tell a twisting ghost story. He remembers an old song from his childhood days: We three, We’re not a crowd; We’re not even company My echo, My shadow, And me…   Soon on the stroll, a crumbling cemetery comes in his sight. It needed an immediate repair. Some of the graves were open with bones and rotting skulls. The narrator picks up one skull but it breaks down as it was made of dust. He gives a concerning thought to the cemetery...

Breaking the stereotype and transcendental in its essence, Ameya Bondre’s poems are silent expressions of situations, reminisces, memories, commotion, and sense of loss. But solitude persists all along – that is the biggest theme in the collection. The author metaphors his emotions with ripples, that never agitates, always flowing and flitting by silently. The first poem 'Calm' reflects the periphery of a calm mind, it’s like an ocean, boundaryless but uncertain like its tides that never come back. A very nice enchanting opening poem, easy-to-read, and soothing to mind. Enhances the mood… Second poem is a lipogram. A crowd of people busy in their chores and chitter-chatter, the poet is searching the meaning of life by observing others lives. Searching and Whirring are perfect examples of noises in the mind. There is everything but it will not let the mind rest. Hollowness is eternal in a brooding mind. Those Days, Home, Ticking...are some poems that exclusively builds a...

Gaia’s Own is a uniquely written non-fiction book on Mother Earth, nature, environmental issues, climate change, and much more. The USP of the book is that it’s highly engaging while doling out the important messages and concerns to school children, young people, and teens. Written in a letter format – a school girl named Satvika exchanges communication via emails with her grandfather Yogesh, who is a nature photographer. Satvika participates in ‘Earth Hour’ event in her school. She comes across many topics about our earth, which she further discusses with her grandfather, who is most of the time travelling across the world on his assignments. With personal elements attached, mini stories of duo are lovely, but this book doesn’t detour from its prime focus. At first it sounds that Gaia is someone’s name…no it’s just another name for Mother Earth, as per the Greek cultural roots. The book discusses at length the progress of human race vs. living in harmony with nature. It needs no i...

Legally Toxic by Sneha Dhar is a riveting crime thriller backdropped against legal proceedings and courthouse drama. The protagonist of the novel is a lawyer Alekha Srivastav. She is an ambitious person but so far has had handled only petty cases for women and suppressed victims. She is happy with her mentor Girish around her for guidance and practice. The other side of the story portrays her womanly homely life – an adorable daughter, a caring husband, a fewer friends. Socially, she is well placed. In fact, the novel is not only about chasing the leads and clients, investigating the crime scenes – it rather shuttles between vagaries of life that a working woman has to pass through inevitably. Yet she has to manage all chaos and chores with an equal élan. For instance, her best friend Tami’s husband Akash and Pravesh (her husband) are always cross with each due to some old days hostility. That affects her social life with Tami. The novel cannot pass entirely as a legal thriller; it’s...

Win your Mood is a resourceful self-help book by the subject matter expert Nidhi Singh Chauhan. Written in highly presentable form with lucid language, this book indeed lifts up the mood with its tips, tricks, and other positive insights. In a sense, the book is not a dull or drab repetitive effort. The teachings inside are evident of Nidhi’s values and healing experience she doled out to people in need. The book stretches up to 25 chapters. The last chapter sums up many important lessons briefly – it was indeed a gem in the book. The core teaching of the book highlights the vitality of self-talk and choices. They both are critical to our overall mental, physical, and life success. The book starts with classification of our mind like conscious, subconscious, pre-conscious and it goes on with quotes from eminent figures, and a few short stories from the daily lives. Nidhi has done a wonderful job by commencing the book with mind thing. It’s imperative to understand our mindset/frame...

Ramu Upadhaya has been a consisting author from Dima Hasao, Assam. So far, he penned down around 9 books, nearly all fictional. Well, this one is an exception – Assam’s Dima Hasao Pearls of Big River – it’s rather a work of non-fiction that is a tribute, guide, resource, and an important historical journal on the only hill station of Assam. Before we take it ahead, let’s understand some specifications about the title and its relevance. The book is about one rich lineage district of Assam, Dima Hasao. Its earlier name was North Cachar Hills. It was an autonomous district council as per the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution to safeguard the right of tribal people. It’s to be noted that Dimasa is a tribe. The name of the district emanates from it…Dima means big river and Hasao is equivalent to dwelling place. Thus, the title is apt. The book comes in an appreciable pattern, and easy to comprehend. A work of non-fiction but full of stories of the people who built, contributed, and liv...

Have you ever been confounded by twin flame thing? What is it and how it works in person? Need a live example of their life and love? You need not to search the oceans and skies, simply pick up this novel: Mirror Soul: Flames of Fate by Kritika G. Soin. The title is another name for twin flames. Twin means two. It is like one soul in two bodies. One soul searches for its second half. Unless they meet it is incomplete and their restlessness deepens with time. Only spiritually connected and a divine interference can cause streaks of twin flames element in an individual. When they come together, meet, live – it becomes complete. On similar lines lies the foundation of the novel ‘Mirror Soul.’ Twin flame love stories are hard, harsh, stressed outs, tested by time, and require immense faith and divine intervention. The novel is about Charu and Rudra. Here, the girl Charu is that soul that craves and suffer for its second half i.e. Rudra. Charu takes it all on her while never giving up...

Badalon Ke Paar by Dr. Sangeeta Tomar is a beautifully written Hindi children’s novel. It’s a literary wonder for school going children. As it chronicles the tale of a school-going girl named Mini, also the novel is staged against two contrasting schools in the same city. The novel is charming because of its time era, it is about 1980s and 90s, when childhood used to be filled with real friendship, happiness, and uncluttered worries that today’s advanced technology brings along with it. The world of Mini is simple and pure, however, it’s way far from luxury. Dr. Sangeeta Tomar draws a real and credible world of a student and schools and locality that sounds absolute surreal. Mini’s parents are working people who cannot afford much time for her, thus, she goes to a school with a neighbor and spends ‘after-school-time’ with people and friend from her locality. She is happy, bright in studies, but something is missing from her life. She is a bold, sensitive, and a chirpy girl. She lov...